CHICAGO _ A Cook County judge ordered the case file in the aborted prosecution of "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett unsealed Thursday in a victory for the Chicago Tribune and other news organizations.
Smollett's attorney succeeded in sealing the court records at the same unannounced hearing in which State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office abruptly dropped all charges that the actor had staged an attack on himself.
After news organizations sought to unseal the records, Smollett's legal team opposed the request, citing the actor's privacy rights.
But Judge Steven Watkins held that those privacy rights had been trumped after Smollett and his attorneys went before the cameras to declare his innocence.
"These are not the actions of a person seeking to maintain his privacy or simply to be let alone," Watkins said.
The actual court file itself is slim since Foxx's office abruptly dropped the 16-count indictment alleging Smollett staged the attack only about a month after he was charged.
But the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County state's attorney's office have both denied public-records requests on the grounds that the file was sealed.
Prosecutors had taken no position on whether the records should be unsealed to news organizations, but in a separate request, they have asked Watkins to modify the order so that the county Office of the Inspector General can view certain documents.
At Foxx's request, the IG is conducting a review of how Foxx's office handled the Smollett prosecution.
Smollett, who is black and openly gay, reported in late January that he was the victim of an attack by two people shouting racist and homophobic slurs.
But he was charged after Chicago police determined that Smollett had agreed to pay $3,500 to two brothers he knew to stage the attack.
Foxx has faced fierce criticism over her office's abrupt dismissal of the charges, including calls for her resignation by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.
In addition to the IG investigation, Sheila O'Brien, a retired state appellate judge, has pushed for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the dropping of the charges.
In her petition, O'Brien highlighted how Foxx said she recused herself in the early stages of the investigation _ only to claim later that it was not a recusal "in the legal sense" that would have required the entire office to withdraw from the prosecution.
Communications later released to the Tribune showed Foxx had asked police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to turn over the investigation to the FBI after she was approached by Tina Tchen, former chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama.
